The present invention provides an economical, efficient, and accessible solution to the current problem of providing housing to areas having a large population of individuals and families who have become displaced due to natural disasters, war, and poverty. Recent natural disasters occurring in Haiti, India, Japan and the United States have brought national and international attention to the pressing need to provide quick, easy to construct, and economical shelter to what is often thousands to hundreds of thousands of immediately displaced individuals. Some natural disasters have even resulted in the immediate displacement of millions of individuals. This type of housing crisis is also caused by man-made disasters, such as war and poverty.
Tents, mobile homes, and other means of temporary shelter have been provided in the past. Nevertheless, there are a multitude of limitations to the mobile home solution. One limitation is that mobile homes are relatively expensive and may not be readily available in the disaster area. They are also not easily transported. Pre-constructed mobile homes require the use of large trucks, ships, and/or rail vehicles to transport. On-site construction of mobile homes requires tools, special construction knowledge, and typically several personnel to jointly construct the mobile home. When large scale disaster strikes, personnel shortages of personnel able to assist in the relief effort is also a problem. Thus, the mobile home solution may not be economically practicable, quick, or feasible.
Tents also have many drawbacks. They are not very safe as they are very easily entered into. This is a serious drawback because such disasters are often accompanied by rampant theft, discord, rape, and other strife. The issue is aggravated by the fact that there may not be sufficient police enforcement officials to manage such matters. Additionally, tents do not provide much resistance to weather conditions. Tents also require tools to construct and special knowledge of how to construct the tent. Moreover, tents are not comfortable and do not provide additional functionality, such as the ability to store water or the ability to be converted into a permanent structure through the introduction of sand or cement. This added functionality would be particularly useful in areas of rampant poverty, where clean water is scarce and adequate shelter is not common.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the art to provide temporary housing structures that are made of low-cost materials; can be quickly and easily assembled; quickly and easily transported; require no special skills or tools to construct; and have the ability to catch and store water or be converted to a more permanent structure; thereby providing an economical, multi-functional, and easily accessible housing solution to areas having a large number of displaced individuals.